Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004. / "A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy" Includes bibliography.

This thesis is the first substantive analysis of unregistered proprietary horse racing (or pony racing, as it was popularly known) in Sydney, an extremely popular form of the sport conducted weekly or more frequently between 1888 and 1942. However, a number of researchers working on its periphery have contributed commentary and judgements to a discourse on it that has existed since the establishment of the Sydney Turf Club (STC) in 1943. Their writings have created an orthodox view of the sport that suggests inter alia it was a cultural expression of a ‘needy and greedy’ element of the working class and that its constituency was excluded from that of the racing of the Establishment, conducted by the Australian Jockey Club (AJC). This orthodoxy also holds unregistered racing was subject to endemic corruption, haphazardly conducted, inexpensive to attend, provided poor money and was in general a burlesque of AJC racing. The thesis engages this discourse and tests the tenets of the orthodoxy through examination or re-examination of relevant primary sources, including parliamentary papers, contemporary newspapers and journals, race books and other documents, administrative records, photographs, and the memoirs and transcripts of oral history provided by human participants. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)